£18.3k raised at Expo
Gamers can be a tremendous force for good in their communities. Today we would like to thank everyone involved in fund raising at the UK Games Expo this year. UKGE raised £18.3k for several charities through a variety of events, activities and of course the Bring & Buy.
2019 UKGE Charities
The Bring & Buy
All profits from the Bring & Buy are donated to charity. A constant stream of people were dropping off games or picking them up from Thursday evening through to Sunday. At one point over the weekend, we had over 10 and a half thousand items of stock physically in the Bring and Buy!
Huge thanks to Jason and his tireless volunteers for this brilliant and crazy enterprise!
The Maths Trade
This sounds terribly complex but in fact is just clever logic. Some folk have games they want, others have games they want to get rid of, everyone submits these and the software matches folk up. This is an over simplification because for some reason people think it involves summoning Esoteric algorithm monsters from the outer reaches of MathsSpace using celestial geometry....And you know what? That's pretty cool too.
Check out BoardGameGeek for an explanation of maths trades. Maths is awesome and so are all those who donated to charity by taking part in the Maths Trade! Thank you!
Happy Salmon Mega Game
A Mega Game of Happy Salmon was run/perpetrated Saturday tea time at the Expo in aid of Seren's ALL Stars. On Table Top kindly filmed this for us so that 2 year Expo veteran Seren Mawson (a phenomenally chirpy 6 year old, fighting ALL: Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia) could watch from home as she was too ill to attend this year's Expo. We're certain we had 180 players and maybe a few more! Thank you to everyone for joining in play as well as to those who cheered from the crowd and to everyone who donated so generously.
Watch some Happy Salmon insanity, and find out more about ALL.
Playtest.co.uk
Rob Harris and his team run the Playtest Zone each year, where aspiring designers can have their fledgling games played and tested by Expo visitors. Its massively worthwhile and helps designers spot any niggles in game play, get suggestions from their audience and ultimately helps to make better and more robust games for the future.
It also raises money for charity. Anyone who books their game into a 3 hour slot over the weekend has the option to donate to charity and we are tremendously grateful to Rob for all his organisation and also to all the designers and everyone who donated so generously.
If you want to know how to get your game play tested check out the Playtest website.
The Dice Tower
Several super keen players signed up almost immediately to play games with Dice Tower legends Tom Vasel and Zee Garcia. Tom and Zee very kindly gave their time and enthusiasm to play games on their Moby Geek GeeknSon table in the Open Gaming Area.
Tickets sold out stupidly quickly for both Cosmic Encounters with Tom and Deception with Zee.
Huge thanks to The Dice Tower for their terrific contribution over the Expo and to the players for their donations!
If you want to know more about The Dice Tower, check out their website for reviews, news and gaming awesome.
The Reading Zone with Coram Beanstalk and Warhammer Adventures:
Reading is obviously a vital skill for real life not just to ensure you know the rules or story for gaming! Expo had a Reading Zone in Hall 1 this year to host Coram Beanstalk as well as the younger reading series Warhammer Adventures by Games Workshop.
Coram Beanstalk recruits, trains and supports volunteers to provide one-to-one literacy support in early years and primary schools to children who have fallen behind with their reading. This was both popular and a great way for kids to chill and read with parents.
Please have a look at the links to our charities this year. Thanks to everyone for their help, support, generosity and pure keen.
Life is better playing together!